Sasquatch, Suspense, and a Whole Lot of Nothing
There are bad movies, there are “so bad they’re good” movies, and then there’s Big Legend—a cinematic cryptid in its own right. Supposedly about an army veteran hunting Bigfoot, it instead plays like Deliverance if it were written by ChatGPT after reading one Wikipedia article about folklore and three about wilderness camping.
The film, directed by Justin Lee and released by Sony Pictures Home Entertainment (a phrase that does more damage to Sony’s reputation than any Bigfoot ever could), promises “legendary terror in the Pacific Northwest.” What it actually delivers is 85 minutes of a man yelling into trees, a creature that looks like a furry linebacker with mange, and an ending that feels like the world’s saddest trailer for a movie that will never exist.
The Plot: Missing Fiancée, Missing Logic
The story begins with Tyler Laird (Kevin Makely), a rugged ex-soldier who decides that the perfect place to propose to his girlfriend Natalie (Summer Spiro) is deep in the woods. Nothing says “romantic getaway” like a tent, mosquitoes, and the faint smell of bear scat.
They have their big night under the stars—complete with the kind of wooden dialogue that would make a tree cringe—before being awakened by a mysterious knocking sound. Tyler investigates, Natalie screams, and poof—she’s kidnapped by what we assume is Bigfoot.
Cut to twelve months later: Tyler has been in a psych ward, presumably recovering from the trauma of being in this script. He’s released back into society, still haunted by Natalie’s disappearance, and armed with one hell of a five o’clock shadow. With his mom’s blessing (because nothing says “family support” like “sure, honey, go back into the murder forest”), he returns to find answers.
What follows is 80 minutes of Tyler camping, grunting, and staring suspiciously at twigs. He meets another hunter, Eli (Todd A. Robinson), whose job is to deliver exposition while looking vaguely like a man who’s been living on jerky and disappointment for years. Together, they try to track the beast, but mostly they just argue and limp around like a low-budget buddy cop duo—Squatch & Grizzle: Dawn of Mediocrity.
The Monster: Bigfoot, or Just a Guy in a Fursuit?
Ah, the Bigfoot. The film’s selling point, its titular monster, its… poorly lit stuntman in a ghillie suit.
The creature is mostly hidden for the first hour—probably because the production couldn’t afford both a monster costume and a second camera. When it finally appears, it looks like someone glued roadkill to a basketball player and told him to growl.
Bigfoot doesn’t stalk so much as meander. He throws logs, shoves cars, and occasionally claws at people like a bear who just remembered it had dinner plans. The film tries desperately to make him scary, but every time he’s on screen you half-expect him to ask for a union card.
By the time Tyler fights him, it’s less man vs. beast and more man vs. costume department. Watching them wrestle is like watching two drunk dads fight at a barbecue while someone forgets to turn off the propane tank.
The Acting: Method? More Like Methadone.
Kevin Makely, to his credit, commits. He scowls, screams, and flexes his jawline like it’s the fifth character in the film. But without anyone to play off of for most of the runtime, he’s basically Tom Hanks in Cast Away—if Wilson the volleyball occasionally tried to eat him.
Todd A. Robinson as Eli gives us the archetype of “grizzled hunter who knows too much,” but his dialogue is so nonsensical that he sounds like a doomsday prepper trapped in a Bigfoot subreddit.
And then there’s Lance Henriksen. Yes, that Lance Henriksen. He appears in the final two minutes to say something cryptic about “a team that hunts monsters,” like a horror-movie Nick Fury. You can practically hear his inner monologue saying, “I did Aliens for this?”
Adrienne Barbeau also pops up as Tyler’s mom, though her role seems to exist solely to deliver casseroles and emotional exposition before vanishing into the mist of better projects.
The Dialogue: Nature’s Greatest Threat Is the Screenplay
You can almost hear the script pleading with you to take it seriously. Unfortunately, when your characters say things like “There’s something out there… something big,” the only big thing is the eye roll it provokes.
Eli’s dialogue is particularly rich in cryptid clichés:
“The Chinook had symbols for these things. Not friendly to man.”
Oh, really? You don’t say! Because nothing screams “authentic folklore” like a poacher misquoting indigenous legends for dramatic effect.
The script is filled with lines so earnest and clunky they could be used to fell trees. It’s the kind of dialogue where people shout each other’s names far more often than they say anything meaningful. “NATALIE!” “ELI!” “BIGFOOT!”—the forest must have thought it was an improv class.
The Pacing: Slow Burn, Heavy on the Burn
The movie moves with the urgency of a hungover park ranger. For the first hour, nothing happens except walking, grunting, and the occasional sound effect meant to suggest menace. It’s like The Revenant if Leonardo DiCaprio had been replaced by a man whose main talent is yelling “SHOW YOURSELF!” at fog.
When action does happen, it’s shot so shakily you can’t tell if the cameraman was scared or just standing on a trampoline. There’s no rhythm, no tension—just the dull ache of watching survival gear being used improperly.
The Ending: The Sequel That Never Was (Thank God)
After the climactic propane explosion (because in bad horror movies, propane solves everything), Tyler emerges from the forest, bloodied but alive. He’s picked up by a stranger who takes him to a hospital, where he meets Lance Henriksen’s Jackson Wells—who tells him, in a voice dripping with genre fatigue, that there are “more monsters out there” and he’s recruiting.
It’s a cliffhanger meant to tease a sequel or shared universe—a “Monsterverse,” if you will. Unfortunately, the only thing shared here is the audience’s collective sigh.
Big Legend 2 never happened, and frankly, that’s the happiest ending possible.
The Humor: Unintentional but Abundant
Despite its grim tone, Big Legend is one of the funniest comedies of 2018—completely by accident. Watching Tyler fashion booby traps like a deranged Boy Scout is pure entertainment. At one point, he stitches his own wound in silence, then immediately bellows into the void like someone who just stubbed his toe on destiny.
Even Bigfoot himself provides laughs—his first full reveal looks less like a monster attack and more like a guy who wandered off from a Duck Dynasty set.
It’s so sincere, so deeply convinced of its own gravitas, that it becomes endearing in a “watching your nephew’s school play about PTSD and cryptids” kind of way.
Final Thoughts: A Bigfoot Movie Without Bigfoot Energy
In theory, Big Legend could’ve been something—a gritty wilderness thriller, a tragic exploration of grief through folklore, maybe even a character study wrapped in monster horror.
Instead, it’s an empty tent in the woods: all setup, no soul, and just enough wind to make you wonder what could’ve been.
Kevin Makely gives it his all, the forests of Washington look lovely, and the creature design is… existent. But everything else—from the pacing to the script—feels like it was buried by Bigfoot himself, only to be unearthed decades later and released straight to digital out of spite.
So if you ever find yourself deep in the woods and hear something knocking in the distance, don’t worry—it’s not Bigfoot. It’s just Big Legend, still trying desperately to get your attention.
And trust me: it’s not worth answering.
